think they might have been in the immediate vicinity they've been advising locals to cover their mouths and know with surgical masks and of course to evacuate the area as soon as they can that's exactly luzhin area as we were saying around the fukushima number one plant has increased it was previously a ten kilometer exclusion zone and that has now been made up to a twenty kilometer exclusion zone but only around the fukushima number one plant not as yet as we think around the number two plants however we do know that some journalists in the area have been told that they have not been allowed to get within sixty kilometers of the plants well a nuclear reactors at full power plants in the earthquake struck automatically also shut down on friday in some of the reactors at the to think she will plant the cooling systems which should keep operating on emergency power supplies they failed

which triggered this emergency is without cooling the temperatures in the reactor core builds and the risk that it could melt through it's insane into the building housing the reactor rather housing the system where pressure also builds and the containers housed in the reacts it self. meltdown would not necessarily lead to a major disaster because of the light water reactors and they would not explode even if they ate the he said. although some experts that we have spoken to you are likening this to the massive disaster that took place last surge not all but people are still saying it's still far too early to tell if the explosions after mars would result in the same extreme level of radioactive continue contamination that occurred at chernobyl. well christopher simon an associate professor at the international christian university in tokyo

says although it may seem like there are many similarities to chernobyl the two incidents are quite different. it looks like this is caused by the cooling system for you and now when the earthquake occurred yesterday at about two forty six the reactors immediately shut down but of course you can't shut down a reactor instantly it has to keep cooling the reaction it's going on inside it so these reactors have backup generators which continue to pump water into that reactor unfortunately the backup generators which are easily generators at some point she might daiichi seem to fail after a vote an hour and they were running on emergency batteries while the military began moving in more equipment more electrical equipment is our the cooling now it seems as though it's possible in the last couple of hours that has failed and the

reactor materials that is the uranium in the reactor has been exposed to the air. and there have been reports that he. had died and cesium both radioactive iodine and cesium have been detected around the reactor and i could indicate there's essentially no water left to come out of this reaction and that could have caused the explosion and the situation is quite dangerous it seems as though hopefully serious is general these free after his call entirely bottled water. i melt down or simply when the nuclear materials cannot be cooled and the temperature rises in the containment area and the reactor materials themselves to the point at which they destroy the reactor that surrounds them of course these temperatures have to reach about five hundred degrees celsius for the metal and for the uranium itself probably in the order of eight hundred to one thousand degrees celcius. the good

news is that that in the daiichi reactor is sort of the daiichi reactor the one that is just exploded. there is entirely water so that material venting into the atmosphere will likely just steam a radioactive steam in the case and sharon know that. the reactor was moderated by graphite and graphite holds the radiation and spirits much for that are as dust and gas so. about was the significant problem was shown over the the neutron moderator and near you now react it was different and the radiation could spread much further you have to remember that at the daiichi site there are i believe six active reactors all of which have shut down and again i don't have all the information but at the moment it appears as though reactor building number one is the site of the explosion now this is the oldest of the six reactors at daiichi it

was built in one thousand seven hundred so it suggests that the oldest structure on the site was also the weakest and that this explosion has possibly exposed the uranium in the reactor to the air. and he doesn't mean that the situation is necessarily out of control as long as the government and military can supply out of cooling materials that is electrical power to drive pressurized water into the reactor building. hopefully some of the venting can still be contained in other words if the roof has collapsed it could mean that some steam has escaped or it could mean that. the situation is out of control and as the reactor core cools any water pumped into it will continue to turn into

radioactive steam and vents into the atmosphere so that we don't know it could be quite a dangerous situation as you said the safety limit has been expanded from ten. lawmakers to twenty kilometers people are being advised to stay in their homes not drink water turn off their air conditioners and it sounds like the government is preparing people for a significant nuclear event but it seems as though they're suggesting that as the radioactive steam which is venting from building number one cools the atmosphere of course it's the it's night now as that steam condenses into liquid water will enter the water supply carrying. cesium isotope so with it which treat contaminated people in the vicinity. of that last report that radiation in the vicinity of was approximately one thousand my procedure and that is about

as much as a human body should it's your own year and that's being released every hour or so it seems like the radiation levels in the acidity of the reactor are quite high the biological effects will depend on a number of factors of course. it is a measure of biological impact rather than. just nuclear energy so for example if you are a larger person you have a larger body mass absorbing that same amount of radiation that suggests that the most vulnerable people will be children and the elderly people with a smaller body mass or or more we could body. i believe that measure of one thousand micro sieverts was quite close to the reactor so obviously the main concern is for emergency workers firefighters and military in the area people further away are probably not at so where your risk of course the.

radiation is carried by particles in the air. diminishes geometrically with this. so hopefully the levels ten kilometers away or twenty kilometers away are not nearly as high at the moment the government seems to be giving very good advice of course the difficulty again is the difference between the type of material being vented here at at daiichi a the likelihood is it is mostly it's the. cherry noble the. vaporized. the prized graphite would have materialized as as dust or affected people as dust so staying inside i would have been the best option and seen applies to daiichi but of course if the water condenses and enters the water supply made. up of so people wearing masks keeping their doors and

windows shut and keeping their ears circulation systems such as heating and air conditioner switched off is about all you can do i mean. the government is going to give an excellent advice and in that situation there really isn't anything else you can do if radiation levels are high the government as you mentioned will administer anti-radiation medication such as such as i.v. . japan and major witnessing a new clear catastrophe an explosion that. means it could be facing complete meltdown let's cross life out of benefits for the very basis to take a either i guess a situation where you are now. well here in tokyo it's very very quiet actually it's really not the soul on the streets it's in downtown tokyo rightness and and it's it's like a ghost town no one's out and about people there who are out in the streets are all

wearing those masks over their face so it's obviously the fears of the spread of radiation have reached tokyo as well and that's the major big recurring at the country and that region in the pacific to the spread of radiation we know there is some radiation in the air the evacuation zone around that nuclear power plant. number one has been extended to twenty kilometers and some people even being advised to stay indoors not even venture out. but we do don't yet know in fact the severity of this radiation in the air and how much that could spread that all depends on what happened in the explosion earlier today has been confirmed as an explosion by the chief cabinet chief secretary cabinet. early today and we've seen pictures huge explosion huge plume of smoke coming out from the power plant and the nuclear reactor but we don't yet know the cause now if

it was a case of the nuclear reactor itself melting then what that means is nuclear meltdown and it could be a very slick consequences indeed that happens when the cooling system is not out and that happened with the earthquake the lack of electricity but there are backup generators that now if that doesn't kick in then the temperature inside the reactor itself gets very very often then it melts and it leaks now there are fears that that has happened because radioactive cesium and iodine both fuels inside the reactor has been found traces and have been found outside the reactor so there are fears the reactor itself has melted however just the last hour the japanese nuclear safety watchdog has come out and said that they think that structure itself of the reactor hasn't been damaged severely so at length some fears there but it's a difficult balancing act from here on because the pressure is so great inside the

bessel but still very very well because the cooling system isn't functioning on as normal you know that a couple of hours ago with color flew still one hundred degrees above one hundred degrees centigrade and earth so the pressure needs to be relieved now but if they do that then really they release gases inside. the vessel into the atmosphere now they don't know they think what they released is mostly steam and a comment from the japanese. chief secretary of the cabinet said the radiation levels following the release of steam as they were expected so it seems that it's not what they've done it hasn't raised the radiation levels but they aren't you know because. they are. getting everyone in a twenty kilometer radius as you say take care itself there senator with gays towner so large of the fear take a some two hundred fifty kilometers northeast of where the explosion took place at

fukushima and you see obviously we still don't really know how large the potential radiation risks are as a result of this blast but so one of the the long term potential fear is that people have out there in japan and what they worry about is the worst possible consequence of all this. people i spoke to get on the so fast on the train and in from the airport to the for the center hours on the train for a very long time three to four hours they didn't actually mention that it's as a concern at all it's simply and surprisingly strange i had to actually almost force them to say and was asking asking saying you know can search and validate radiation from this explosion but power companies know one thing that more than maybe they didn't really know the extent but now coming into the center is clear that something's definitely not right here and the fear is that interrupted

radiation play cloud could spread here that's about fifty percent of people are seen. overall since i landed in tokyo you are wearing these masks and the streets are empty and cloud it seems could be spreading because the government keeps extending that radiation and certainly evacuations and they do that again also there's another plant the fukushima number two plant there hasn't been an explosion yet but. the radio the evacuation zone has been extended from three kilometers to ten counts are necessary precautions there and also saying there will be analyzing the exposure levels of the people they evacuate and quarantining them if necessary how competent how's the government and the japanese authorities been in your opinion in dealing with all of this and getting information out there helping people to understand the seriousness of what happened at fukushima.

there's a fine line that really because if they say exactly maybe they didn't know to begin with but if they don't want to cause too much panic obviously and especially with a situation like this however it did seem in the beginning it seems likely conflicting reports taken from japanese media and western media when the explosion happened and the levels of radiation were being tested in it and that was filtering out through the news wires the japanese media were saying it was twenty times higher than normal and and this was an explosion was definitely or they couldn't confirm it the pictures suggested otherwise it was very clear there was a bang there was a large plumes and the western media are saying that the. radiation levels were a thousand times above normal now it seems like. the japanese media are. letting out more information the government is. in again and maybe just realizing the full extent of it all on the other hand maybe they don't want that. too much but

watching that for the last hour jack news television here. all the pictures for the first forty five minutes of the hour were in fact about the tidal wave and the devastation that caused in the north of japan is sendai near the epicenter of the earthquake where is the news now of course in the major glory radiation so it seems that only came on the agenda once they had that print press conference once that the chief secretary of the cabinet did confirm that there was indeed an explosion so now maybe they are telling the public thought the extent. of their worry ok i have many thanks for keeping us updated either bennett there reporting live for us from tape. well russia says it's ready to help for japan in dealing with the aftermath of the earthquake and moscow can draw on a wealth of experience of course in coping with that chill and technological

disasters will r.t. so let's hear the chef he joins us live from make here the ukrainian you got this cannot face right here in moscow for us if i could turn to you first because just what sort of advice and help can russia offer. well first of all at the moment it's perhaps too soon and too early to establish the final damage and the entire scale of the devastation caused by these horrific events in japan which are still unfolding especially with this blast at the fukushima one nuclear power plants and reports of possible nuclear contamination in the entire region but at the moment russia's emergencies ministry has prepared a six jets to deliver rescuers a doctors medical equipment a mobile hospital to japan all is needed at the moment is a request from japanese authorities these jets have been on standby since friday on

the personal order of the russian president has also ordered all a local emergency services and rescue services in russia's far east in the region especially on the cool islands which are right bear in japan's neighborhood just located just several miles to the north of japanese to east he ordered everybody to be on high alert and recently to get ready for any type of scenario when it comes to dealing with disasters russia does have experience both in dealing with earthquakes if we talk about cool islands alone they've been hit by earthquakes quite a lot of times before and also moscow has the experience in dealing with a nuclear disasters as well i'm talking about the. internal nuclear catastrophe in one thousand nine hundred eighty six so for the biggest such disaster in history so once again it's too soon to establish the full scale of devastation in japan but

i think it's pretty clear a lot of effort is going to be needed in order to try to return all life to normal in these affected areas so these six planes are on standby all is needed is a request from japan. now you can say many things he mentioned there of course that . he's in the ukraine for us alexei we of course thought the pictures of that enormous white smoke rising out of africa plant in japan how dangerous do we think that it could be bearing in mind the experiences of what happened at channel. well as you said it is really too early to judge what the extent of this catastrophe could be we can only refer to the events of twenty five years ago international which is now a part of the solar in ukraine of course the contamination from the open reactor

from the exploded reactor at the chernobyl nuclear power station was almost immediate and the levels of radiation at the site could kill a person within minutes unless this person wore any protective gear indeed the aftermath of this explosion the radioactive cloud went towards the west and europe and was felt everywhere across the european continent even reaching the eastern coast of the united states and of course. this raging radioactive clouds lost some of its dangerous radiation levels but indeed at the site of the radiation levels were very high at some parts of the exclusion zone in ukraine the thirty kilometer exclusion zone around the chernobyl nuclear power plant the area where practically nobody lives nowadays and where people were evacuated from some parts of this area the radiation levels are still dangerous and still really high and it is unsuitable for humans to be there for even ten or fifteen minutes it could cause

the early stages of radiation sickness now of course it is early to judge what's happening now in japan because we've been receiving conflicting reports and we cannot judge what the levels of radiation are and whether any radio. emitted into the atmosphere we only heard that now the winds are blowing. and this means that the mainland part of russia. china and the korean peninsula will not be affected. should there be any. radiation into the atmosphere that's basically how dangerous it is. and you clear e.x.e. is something described by many. scenarios the worst nightmare.

goes into a. failed experiment like it happened twenty five years ago but nevertheless this is when i react to. this chain reaction that on many occasions it's. actually what happened. after putting it high into the air so you can imagine how powerful. a genuine nuclear. nuclear. it's really hard to judge. such circumstances because the situations where the where nuclear reactor went into an uncontrollable condition happened very seldom in human history but nevertheless. the

japanese government earlier that they have managed to control the situation of. the pressure at the reactor so. as to what caused this explosion at the fukushima plant because right now it seems unclear despite the striking resemblance despite the white smoke coming from the reactor just as it happened twenty five years ago in chernobyl and this is of course a worrying sign for many experts across the globe well as you say despite some obvious resemblances with your novel seeing the white plume of space scientists is still in sea minds as to whether it will really result in the same extreme levels of very radiate saying for contamination that occurred out search of normal but of course during the course of trying to establish what happened in japan we've been receiving many conflicting reports about the situation both be from the ground or from the japanese government does that in itself this lack of clarity of

information does that resemble anything that happened twenty five years ago june the chernobyl disaster. well certainly. practically nobody knew what was going on twenty five years ago when the term. kept secret from the general public in the soviet union and from the rest of the world. very secretive campaign. some several weeks before the high levels of radiation were detected in sweden and that's when europe realized that something was going wrong in the soviet union and that's when it did enquired happening and only then. revealed to the rest of the planet. what is now happening in terms of the media coverage in terms of what information what information the japanese government is providing to the rest of the world and to the public in this country

is of course. more information than twenty five years ago in the soviet union and this is of course much better. great improvement compared to what happened. especially given the fact that the government started to evacuate people. this threat of a nuclear accident occurred. because twenty five years ago when the chernobyl reactor exploded. more than fifty thousand residents evacuated more than one day since the explosion and obviously all these people were subjected to a great deal of radiation to a great deal of threats coming from the open react. to the state how many people have died following the. explosion at the facility on the emission of radiation to the atmosphere can provide exact figures but clearly the negligence.

serious consequences but at the same time clearly. the authorities managed to take in the hour. after the explosion of a chair near chernobyl nuclear facility were then considered by the international atomic energy agency as very successful it was bombarding the open reactor with bursts and blood was much more efficient than trying to extinguish the blaze with water this could have caused another steam explosion maybe much more powerful than the first one in fact and the steps taken by the authorities in the first stages and then the construction of the circle for gas which still remains in chernobyl now days preventing the further spread of radiation to the atmosphere was of course a great experience and probably the people now working on trying to localize the disaster in japan are keeping all this chernobyl legacy in mind trying to sort out this dreadful issue in the difficult because you are plants. reporting from

peers there and it's going off speaking to us from moscow in many places. when we look at the history of nuclear accidents of course the worst is the chernobyl disaster that we've just been hearing about in nine hundred eighty six good so far more than you think might actually have taken place elsewhere in the world that the majority in the early development of atomic weapons were the most notable ones in can be explosion at the national reality testing station in the u.s. state of idaho way back in one thousand nine hundred sixty one but disasters have also played peaceful nuclear energy program as well and we saw the problem occurred . in japan in one thousand nine hundred nine will work is added to many buckets of uranium directly into prison for station tank which turns deadly

problem to date was a steam explosion at the mahama power plant there four people died in eighteen was seriously injured so it seems the country is no stranger to problems within its nuclear stream. well of course we're getting reports as we've been saying all day of a radiation leak from an unstable japanese nuclear reactor in the north of tokyo this comes off to an explosion at the fukushima nuclear power plant where we know the roof collapsed at least four people who worked at the plant were injured in that blast but according to the latest reports that we're getting at they are conscious and their injuries are not life threatening the glass has increased fears of a possible nuclear meltdown and the evacuation area has been expanded to

a twenty kilometer radius around the plant the u.n. nuclear watchdog the international atomic energy agency has called on japanese authorities provided them with joint information as the damage and possible effects of the blast this all follows friday's eight point nine magnitude quake the strongest ever recorded in the country it was all things in this anomaly which brought devastation to the local area over seven hundred people have died in japan so far but that number could be much higher as thousands are still reported to be missing so they would last here on r.t. for our continued current coverage for events unfolding in japan.